My Happy Marriage – 11 – The Burdens of Blood

Miyo’s grandfather Yoshino tells her how the Usudas became mired in debt they couldn’t hope to repay, and one day the Saimoris offered to assume all that debt, in exchange for Sumi marrying into their family. Not seeing any other way to stave off the family’s ruin, Sumi went against her father’s wishes and arranged the engagement.

After that, Yoshino became completely estranged from her daughter, but the backstory picks up when he takes Miyo to the blooming sakura tree and tells her to place her hand on the bark. When she does, her Dream-Sight is unsealed, and she learns what happened after her mother married.

Shortly after Sumi had Miyo, she became aware of two things: If the Saimoris found out her daughter had Dream-Sight, they’d never stop exploiting her, and she didn’t have long to live (she was ill before she married). So Sumi sealed away Miyo’s gift, so that when the proper time came, it would be her choice whether to use it.

As Miyo rests and processes all that she saw with her gift, we see Kiyoka fighting the grotesqueries in the woods with his subordinates. Honestly his men don’t seem like they’re good for much except bait, at least compared to his frighteningly powerful gifts.

When Miyo wakes up the next morning, it isn’t a sudden awakening after a nightmare. She had no nightmares. But she still can’t feel truly at ease as long as she’s in a gilded cage far from her danna-sama’s side. I’m so glad that she remains adamant, even in the face of a pushy Arata, that all she wants is to see him again—if only to apologize.

Arata insists that it’s his duty to protect her, if she would just let him. He later refers to the two of them as alike in their status as “empty shells”, not considering that Miyo isn’t an empty shell; at least not since meeting Kiyoka, Yurie, and Hazuki.

My inkling that Kiyoka would be better off facing the grotesqueries alone is reinforced when one of them rushes Godou, and Kiyoka has to push him out of the way to save him. In the process, he is touched by the grotesquerie, and the miasma causes him to collapse. I’m not sure he would have made as reckless a move if Miyo was waiting for him back home.

Yoshino may be keeping Miyo away from Kiyoka, but he at least assumes responsibility for what happened to Miyo up until then, and expresses his regret that he didn’t make different choices regarding his daughter that could have prevented both her and Miyo’s suffering.

It doesn’t really change the fact that he did what he did, and that presently he’s probably fine with Arata eventually marrying Miyo, his cousin, per the Usuda way. But unlike the awful Saimoris, at least he’s trying to show a modicum of compassion and empathy.

Their exchanges also serve to underscore just how foreign the concept of “family” is to Miyo. Before meeting Kiyoka, the only person in the world who gave a shit about her was her mother, who left her far too soon.

Yoshino tries to explain to her that the members of a family may not always get along, or may at times disappoint, but the bonds of blood never shatter, and a family shares its burdens rather than let one member bear them all.

But when Arata informs Yoshino* that Kiyoka was struck down by the grotesqueries, Miyo insists she has to go to him. Even when Arata tells her that the Usudas struck a deal with the Emperor himself promising to keep her away from anyone supernaturally gifted, she won’t take no for an answer.

Perhaps seeing his daughter’s stubbornness in Miyo, and once again demonstrating he has a heart, Yoshino lets Miyo go to see Kiyoka. Arata escorts her, and she rushes to her fiancé’s bedside and breathes a sigh of relief when she feels his pulse.

That said, no one knows if or when he’ll wake up, which makes Miyo the only person who can do something. Specifically, she may be able to speak to him and even wake him up, by using her newly unsealed Dream-Sight. Just as her mother had hoped, she’s choosing to use it for her own reasons.

*Arata almost makes it a point to tell his grandfather about Kiyoka in earshot of Miyo. I’m not sure why, since at this point his primary duty is to keep her right where she is … Did he honestly think she’d hear that news and not want to immediately go to Kiyoka? … Arata could have lied and said Kiyoka died. Or he could have simply kept Miyo in the dark about Kiyoka altogether … Perhaps Arata did what he did because a part of him didn’t want to deny her free will, just as he had been denied his all his life? In any case, both he and his grandfather make for far more layered, complex characters than the cartoonishly evil half-sister and stepmother.

My Happy Marriage – 10 – Power of Dreams

I want to say Kiyoka never should have brought Miyo to the Usuba mansion, but if he didn’t, her nightmares and suffering would have simply continued and worsened. So he really is in an impossible situation: bring her to a den of lions, or keep her at home and be powerless to stop the dreams from consuming her.

Tsuruki, or I should say Usuda Arata really couldn’t have played his hand better, leaving Kiyoka with no choice but to deliver his fiance into their waiting hands. But at least one mystery is solved in exchange: Miyo is gifted. She may not have Spirit-Sight like most gifted, but she has something better: Dream-Sight.

Miyo’s maternal grandfather is Usuda Yoshino, the head of the Usuda household, and he and Arata make clear that without their direct guidance and intervention, her Dream-Sight could not only destroy her, but cause widespread chaos as bad as any Grotesquerie outbreak.

That being said, Kiyoka simply isn’t willing to give Miyo up to the Usudas. Miyo initially isn’t able to get a word in edgewise as he and Arata measure their dicks, but when she is asked what she wants, she softly mutters that she doesn’t care. For while she wants nothing more than to remain by Kiyoka’s side, she doesn’t want to hold him back.

Cornered as he is, Kiyoka acts rashly, accepting a duel with an Usuda, the depth of powers of whom he knows nothing about, on Usuda grounds he knows nothing about. His pride, righteousness, and confidence in his own powers curdle into self-defeating arrogance.

Even as he seemingly counters all of Arata’s tricky illusions and overwhelms him with lightning and fire, he’s still brought proverbial sword to a gun fight: Arata and the Usudas are masters of mental manipulation, and also exist not to fight and defeat Grotesqueries, but other gift-users.

Arata lets Kiyoka believe he’s winning right up until he lifts his hand to deliver a coup-de-grace, then shows him an illusion of Miyo standing in the way to get him to stop his attack and drop his guard. Arata need only shoot his sword out of his hand, and Kiyoka is done.

Kiyoka has well and truly dug a deep-ass hole for himself. Not only did he take Miyo to the very people trying to take her away from him for good, but agreed to the terms of a fair duel and then lost it, leaving him no other course under his own code but to accept that loss.

When Miyo runs out to take Kiyoka’s bloodied hand, Arata uses his ability to teleport Kiyoka outside Usuda barrier, separating them for who knows how long. Kiyoka slinks back home to a furious Hazuki, who heals his wounds but also demands he get the fuck back out there and bring his fiancee home.

Kiyoka is ready to do so, but an emergency phone call from his superior delays that rescue. He’d certainly rather go back after Miyo, but he also knows now that if people die because he shirked his duty for her sake, she’d blame herself. So he’s not going to give her any reason to do that.

I’m glad Kiyoka is adopting a more calm and collected stance about this, as a.) being brash and hotheaded got him nowhere and b.) the Usudas actually are the only ones who can help Miyo overcome the adverse effects of the nightmares.

Hazuki may be mad, but again, Kiyoka had no choice here. What he could have chosen was to have a more level head, not lose a duel, and be banished from the Usuda’s mansion. As it is, when he returns, he’ll be in violation of the edicts of chivalry that give duels their power.

Unlike when Miyo was captured by Minoru and Kaya, her now being “a guest” of the Usudas isn’t all bad, at least. Simply being within their barrier makes her feel a little better, and she’s now in a position to finally learn about her mother and her secretive family that Arata calls the last line of defense against powerful gift-users gone berserk.

Miyo’s gift, once she’s able to control and use it, is nothing less than the power to enter anyone’s dreams and manipulate them any way she sees fit. I see now why both Minoru and the Emperor was so loath to allow the Kudou family to gain such power.

That said, only now did the Usudas even know she had a gift at all. That’s because her own mother Sumi sealed her power at some point before she died. To learn how and why, Miyo’s grandfather is ready to tell her everything. I’m not ecstatic about the episode ending with Miyo and Kiyoka separated, but Miyo deserves to know the truth of all of this.